When you're dealing with a symbol in a realistic play, it is also a realistic fact. You must expect the audience's mind to work on both levels, symbolically and realistically. But we're trained so much in pure, realistic theater that it's difficult for us to handle things on two levels at the same time.
Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.58, Univ. Press of Mississippi